Carly Rae Jepsen- The Wanted

To say we like to have fun at the fair is an understatement.  Last year, one late night after a really long day a few security guys and the producer (me) decided to hide the production guys golf cart.  That evolved to three days later actually putting it up on the stage.  Even though the carts owner (Mark) found out who the main culprit was (me) last year he still left his cart sitting around last night.  As he's hard at work loading equipment out we stole his cart and well...you'll see the rest here.

Creativeness at it's finest at 1AM

The fun didn't stop there.  The next morning he was shown the cart.  For some reason he refused to drive it around the fairgrounds and took the majority of the tape off.  However, he missed a few strips.  Including a cheetah print and bright pink stripe on the front.  I got a call this afternoon to meet someone.  We went to find the cart.  It had been parked in it's usual spot and Mark had walked across to the hotel.  Cans were attached by string to the back of his cart, tied tightly around a pipe under the cart.  Far enough up that it was difficult to remove.  The cans were shoved underneath the cart and we even parked it differently so he would notice them.  Then one of his own employees called him to tell him there was a major problem in the grandstand that needed his assistance.  We park off in a corner to watch.  He comes running across the street, jumps on the cart and takes off.  He makes it 20ft before he hears the cans and screeches to a halt.  He jumps off the cart and is underneath trying to untie it.  We roll up trying to see what's going on and he just hangs his head "you got me AGAIN!".  I'm still hysterically laughing just thinking about it.  So what to do next!?

Today's show was with Carley Rae Jepsen and The Wanted.  A tiny but mighty crowd.  There are a lot of little kids but dang their screams pack a punch.  I'm hiding in the bunker to avoid losing my hearing. :)  At first I thought it was going to be a terrible day.  Typically these types of bands are really needy.  Carley Rae's tour manager is phenomenal, probably one of the best in the business.  The day has been so smooth.  They did arrive later than expected because of a long ride from their show at the Kentucky State Fair in Louisville, KY last night.  I've now concluded that we can never expect anyone to make it here from there before 10AM.  I will tell you that it never fails that these acts that attract young kids, are typically the most spontaneous, last minute people ever.  These guys take about 5mins to get ready (well at least it looked that way) and they're still late getting on stage.

I got out on the grounds a couple of times today.  I saw one of the strolling acts while I was out.  Can you imagine being on those stilts all day??

I mentioned in a previous blog about the butter cow being defaced and an animal rights group claiming their fame.  Well, the Iowa State Fair decided to benefit off of their actions.  Their foundation that is etablished to raise money for the rehabilitation of the fairgrounds had t-shirts printed up within 48hours as seen below.  I made sure to get mine yesterday!

Lastly for tonight, I have to give a shout out to the fabulous team we have here at the Iowa State Fair.  From the sound and light folks (including the guy that we get a few laughs from with his golf cart), video crew, caterers, runners, maintenance guys, security personnel, ticketing and marketing and the list goes on and on, we have one of the BEST teams in here in Iowa.  My job is so much easier when I have people surrounding me that can actually do theirs.

Freestyle Productions, the BEST video crew